Lunch Lunch Lunch

A couple good lunches as of late...

** Golden Wraps is essentially Jerusalem Bakery's sandwich shop. It's the place you go if you don't want to partake in their delicious $8.99 all-you-can-eat buffet. It has a lot of things going for it, but the big one is that their delicious homemade pita bread is so fresh you could wrap it around a cotton sock and make a yummy lunch. They have a lot of options, but we were most crazy about the Chicken Schawarma wrap and the Sweet and Spicy Chicken. The wraps are loaded and messy and wonderful.

Golden Wraps
located right next to Jerusalem Bakery
at 1404 Westport Rd. in KCMO

** LC's Hamburgers has something of a rabid fanbase. Loyal LC's lovers will tell you that their burgers are better than Winstead's with a very straight face. They aren't kidding. They may fight you over it.
Not being much of a Winstead's girl in the first place, I happily drove through for lunch this week. We barely made it home without tearing into the bag; the smell was intoxicating. The menu tells you that regular cheeseburgers come standard with ketchup, mustard, and onion. What it doesn't tell you is that those onions are so perfectly cooked that they meld with the burger into this kind of happy marriage that I could eat every single day - they're probably grilled, but they were almost carmelized and sweet and delicious hiding under my thin and crispy edged burger patty. It's worth the drive to the Northland. Cross the river.

LC's Hamburgers Etc
7108 N Oak Tfwy in Gladstone
or 7612 NW Prairie View Road in KCMO

** I miss La Cocina del Puerco, too. Obnoxious partying pig mascot and all. But I was happy to find that the carnitas and mole at Austin's Cantina still hit the spot. They have pretty good specials - half-price carnitas on Thursdays, all-you-can-eat tacos on Tuesdays, and half-priced burgers on Mondays. Sources right across the table from me declared the burgers "awesome," and their Olathe and Gardner locations (of Austin's Bar & Grill) are popular spots for good bar food.

Austin's Cantina
9097 Metcalf Ave
in Overland Park, KS

Pasta Fagiole Soup

I have a little spiral-bound black book where I copy down recipes I don't want to lose. About half of these recipes I've never even made, but I was so excited about them I copied them down. The ones I've made and love get stars or other distinguishing marks on their pages - or you can just tell that they were good because their pages look worn and used, with maybe a little flour around the edges or smudges that could be butter or splashes of olive oil or who knows what. I make notations, cross out ingredients or add them - occasionally I even write insightful things like "MMMMM" at the bottom.

This recipe for Pasta Fagiole Soup is on one of those well-worn pages with stars at the top.

Pasta Fagiole
2 cans navy beans, drained
6 c veg broth
1 T. olive oil
2 carrots, peeled and 1/4" diced
1 small spanish onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 celery stalks, 1/4" diced
1/2 lb green beans, trimmed & cut
3-4 roma tomatoes, diced
2 T tomato paste
1 c elbow macaroni
pesto
1/2 c parmesan cheese
salt & pepper to taste

Heat oil; add onion & garlic and cook until softened. Stir in the rest of the vegetables, cook 2-3 minutes. Add tomato paste, cook until bright red (about 30 seconds or so) & add broth.
Bring mixture to a full simmer, add macaroni & cook for 10 minutes. Add drained beans, season with salt & pepper.
Serve with a dollop of pesto and a sprinkling of cheese.

(Sometimes, when I'm feeling it, I throw a little bit of parmigiano regianno rind in while the broth is simmering for extra flavor. Just remember to fish it out before serving.)

Matsu

Sushi always ends up as celebratory food. I don't just get sushi for lunch or eat supermarket sushi when I get the craving - I wait, and then when we have an occasion to celebrate, we go for good sushi. Sometimes we wait too long between sushi celebrations and then we over-celebrate, and when they bring the giant tray or boat covered with those lovely rolls they look at us like we've gotten in way over our heads. Once, the waitress laughed directly at us for the amount of sushi we ordered. I felt a little humiliated, but mostly excited because I was still going to eat that beautiful sushi. So there.

We used to try different sushi houses in town - we've driven out to Sakura (they have an awesome sushi train), eaten a few times at Jun (which has a devoted clientele), and just somehow settled on Matsu as our favorite. I like the atmosphere and the waitstaff and, of course, the food.

We're devotees of the Spider roll and the Philadelphia roll, and just this time tried the Tempura Yam roll, which was delicious. With an order of edamame, some seaweed salads, and a big bottle of Sapporo, nothing says "Hooray for me!" like sushi.

Matsu
427 Westport Rd
816*531*2602

Apple Raspberry Crisp

When you want a pie, but don't want to mess with a crust, try this Apple Raspberry Crisp with Pecan Crunch Topping. (I leave out the applejack and add a smidge more lemon juice to great results)


The pecans make it perfect, and a big scoop of French Vanilla on top makes you some sort of genius/hero hybrid.

Pizza Bella

I had made up my mind that I wasn't posting again until we went to Pizza Bella. I had my heart set on it, much like a petulant child gets their heart set on a new toy. I've had plenty of yawningly average meals that I could've posted about, but I was uninspired, uninterested, and unmotivated. I was on strike until I could get my butt down to 18th and Baltimore.

Today, I am happy to report, was an inspiring day. Pizza Bella is beautiful and the food is worth the raves I've been hearing. El Dorado architects did a lovely job with the space - it feels modern inside without being alienatingly modern. It exudes a certain warmth that isn't just radiating from the wood-fired ovens, which are churning out delicious crusts beneath inventive topping combinations. I used to belong to the school of thought that held that no pizza should have more than three toppings - more than that and the crusts can be overwhelmed, the balance can be easily lost. But there are deft hands behind the counter putting these pizzas together, and there is just enough of everything on pizzas that could be overdone by the overzealous.

Let me just say, in case you need to direct your browser elsewhere: YUM. That is the long and the short of it.

We started with a crispy brussel sprout antipasta, which was perfectly dressed with a pancetta vinaigrette, hazelnuts, dried cherries, and pecorino romano cheese. We shared two pizzas - the sausage (made with delicious fennel sausage) and the potato (with a perfect balance of creamy gorgonzola cheese and bitter radicchio). The crust was exceptional. It had the perfect smoky flavor from the wood, and the texture was incredible. It held up well against the toppings but was delicious all by itself. A little rye flour in the dough made for a pleasantly complex flavor.

The Crossroads is turning out delicious food these days. It makes me excited for what downtown is on the cusp of becoming.


Pizza Bella
1810 Baltimore Ave
816*471*PZZA

Sun-Thurs 11am - 10pm
Fri & Sat 11am - 12am